Last week I received my copy of Troy Nelson’s Guitar Aerobics. As I explained in a previous post, the aim is to give me some workout exercises I can practice on a daily basis which can have the added bonus of enriching my catalogue of licks. Since the workouts are meant to start on a Monday I decided to wait until this week to start up on it.
Of course today’s Tuesday and only this morning I remembered I was supposed to start this off yesterday. Oops, ah well better having to catch up on one day that having to push it back another week. So I squeezed day #1 and day #2 in one session. I like how it’s organised, each day of the week you practice one specific technique:
- Monday -> Alternate Picking
- Tuesday -> String Skipping
- Wednesday -> Bends
- Thursday -> Arpeggios
- Friday -> Sweep Picking
- Saturday -> Legato
- Sunday -> Rhythm
The book also comes with 2 CDs, the first contains all the exercises so you can actually hear what you’re meant to play and the second is a collection of drum loops organised in groups of 8. So track 1-8 is suitable for Rock / Blues and is the same rhythm played at increased tempos, Tracks 9-16 works for metal and so on. The book isn’t just focused on Blues / Rock / Metal either there are Jazz, Funk and even Country exercises as well to appeal to everyone, not just wannabe Shredders.
While I managed to practice Day #1 at all 8 tempos (it was only work on the low E string), I had to give up at about 96bpm (tempo 5) for Day #2 as it was getting too challenging and I really don’t want to force myself to play if it gets really sloppy, that’s how you get yourself bad habits and there are enough of those I’m trying to unlearn from my early days without proper guidance. Still I can see how you can see some dramatic improvement within a year of practising with this book.
One thing I should add is body awareness while practising. Another book I got a few years ago was Jamie Andrea’s Principles of Correct Guitar Practice, which focuses not on what to play but how to play and is full of invaluable advice that most guitar players don’t really think about. As I was practising, I could feel tension mounting up in certain areas like my shoulders and whenever I did, I tried my best to relax. After a while you notice the difference between pain from tension and pain from lack of training. In both cases you stop but in the former you can readjust and keep going while in the latter you just stop and decide you’ve reached your limit.
Finally, I’m questioning my choice of picks again. I have a rather large array of them but I can never seem to be completely happy with the ones I practice with. Gotta have to try some more, but if anyone has good recommendations, I’m all ears :).